Every year, the Azerbaijani people widely commemorate the day of the tragedy-January 20, 1990 that forever marked at the memory of the Azerbaijani people, as the Day of National Mourning.

On this day, which entered to the history of Azerbaijan as the Black January, the Soviet leadership had lost the control of the situation in the country, committed the crime killing the peaceful population of Baku, who gathered in the streets and squares to protest against aggressive actions and territorial claims of Armenia to Azerbaijan. This led to the bloody events that resulted the killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people.

On the night of 19th - 20th January 1990 137 were killed, 744 civilians wounded and 841 were illegally arrested. Among the dead were children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, representatives of different nationalities and professions. Armed with heavy weapons and armored combat units of the Soviet Army and special purpose units brutally destroyed the streets, cars, buildings and shoot peaceful unarmed population.

On those terrible days Azerbaijan was virtually cut off from the outside world. On January 21, 1990 outstanding politician Heydar Aliyev in Moscow, in the building where the Representation of Azerbaijan was located, made a statement condemning the organizers of the tragedy. From his words the world community first learned the truth about the tragedy and heard a condemnation of the crime committed by the leaders of USSR.

In 1994, after Heydar Aliyev became the head of state, Milli Majlis (Parliament) of the Republic of Azerbaijan adopted a special resolution related to the January 20 tragedy.

The campaign of violence and bloody terror has not achieved its goal. Azerbaijani people demonstrated in those days inexorability and pride, which could not broken. Brave sons and daughters of Azerbaijan sacrificed their own lives for the sovereignty and independence of modern Azerbaijan. Every year on the anniversary day of the bloody events of January 1990, Azerbaijani citizens come to the Alley of Martyrs to express his endless respect and consideration to the memory of the innocent victims.